(Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy) - One of the big problems with an Orthodox Christian embracing universalism is that he has to reject a large portion of the liturgical tradition of the Church in order to do so. The eternality of the punishment of the wicked is ubiquitous in the services of the Church. This may be less apparent if one does not have access to frequent church services, but it really becomes apparent the more time you spend in church listening to what is being sung.

The Church doesn’t spend all its time talking about the eternality of Hell, but mainly focuses on encouraging sinners to repentance and to embrace the resurrection of Christ. But even though we are definitely running toward something, we are also very much running from something. And the Church does sing about it often.

To give some sense of this, I wanted to give some samples that speak of this (admittedly, hard) teaching of the Church from the most beloved time of the Church year—the Triodion, which includes the periods of Great Lent and Holy Week. I’ve highlighted some relevant phrases (in some cases, it’s the whole hymn that mentions this, so I didn’t highlight any specific phrases).

You will notice that the biggest selection of this material comes from the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the Sunday that directly addresses the question of the eternal destiny of mankind...

3 comments:

Where is the Universalist and Orthodox movement today? I perceive that it peaked with David B Hart's Creation nd Evil essay. However it is apparent now that David's hermeneutics and philosophy is idiosyncratic at best. Kimel has been in one long post Scholastic recovery program. Is there new leadership for this merry band I am not aware of?

"The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide."